


in her smile was kept my whole world

by arya_B



Series: Sleepy Hollow Alternative Ending [2]
Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Fix-It, Memory Loss, Psychological Trauma, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2019-10-04 08:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17300894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arya_B/pseuds/arya_B
Summary: Abbie forgot him, so what was even the point of Ichabod Crane?(yeah, perhaps the apocalypse was still happening and he was the one who supposed to stop it, so he would fulfill his job. Doesn't mean he would learn how to live without her, though)or: the tale of How Ichabod Got His Abbie Back





	1. maybe I'll see you in another life, if this one wasn't enough

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic is a sequel to "and all I wish is to see your smile one more time" and yes, you have to read that one first. Think of this story as what would be happening in the background of the show during season 4, if season 3 had ended just a tiny itsy bitsy bit decently.

The new Witness is Sophie Foster. Ichabod knows the moment he sees her, as soon as he leaves the hospital. There is a sort of feeling when they meet. A recognition. It is somewhat similar to what he felt when he had first met Abbie, but where Abbie had been fireworks, Sophie is just a spark. He doesn’t blame her, of course, that is his fault. He had been dumb enough to lose his fellow Witness and keep on going. He is the wrong one in this team, not her.

A quick search on Grace Dixon’s genealogy proves that Sophie is indeed a distant cousin of Abbie and Jenny, so that made sense. And they had worked together before, so things just fall naturally into place.

It doesn’t mean, however, that they are great. Ichabod tries, for months, to pretend that the elephant isn’t in the room: that he never feels like Sophie is - in the sense Abbie had been - his “fellow Witness”. She realizes soon enough, but doesn’t seem to resent the fact. They do the job, as best as they can, through the best of their abilities and she laughs it off whenever he starts “Well, Abbie and I…” before realizing it and shutting up.

Other than Sophie, Jenny and Joe also treat him like a convalescent patient, someone whose small flaws should be forgiven. He doesn’t deserve it. He prefers Ezra’s treatment of coldness (or even open hostility at times).

 

"I think you have enough supernatural reasons to stay away from her" Ezra told him one day, out of the blue, when Ichabod was staring at a handwritten note Abbie had left in the Archives "But I am going to reinforce that on your head. Don't try to contact her, don't talk to her if you meet her on the street. She's had enough of your problems and she needs to get better, without you."

Ezra obviously blamed Ichabod for what happened to Abbie, and Ichabod liked to indulge in this self-loathing. It acted as a warped punishment for the fact that he had almost let Abbie die. Twice.

But Ezra's words did took a toll on him. He had an Apocalypse to stop, but it was hard not to fall in despair if he would ever considered that he had lost Abbie forever.

One day, he and Jenny were skimming through old books, trying to find and answer to a riddle, when Ichabod couldn't stop himself from speaking.

“Do you think, miss Jenny, that someday I will be able to see the leftenant again?”

That gave Jenny pause. She looked at him with huge eyes and such a compassion that it made something shift in his throat. What a sorry figure he must’ve made.

“I-I don’t know Crane. Maybe you guys can meet somehow. Like in the pub or at a cafe. And, it won’t harm her. Maybe a few years ahead, when the tribulations are over, you guys can be just two normal friends. No supernatural that would keep her from… getting to know you like a proper person would meet another.”

It seemed awfully unfair that he should’ve died and be kept asleep for hundreds of years, wake up just in time to meet Abbie and then lose her. His life didn’t really had a purpose then, did it?

He would see her at times. Crossing a street or driving around with her FBI partner. He would walk by the baseball stadium, hoping to see her small figure wearing a hat and shouting and some player or another. He took yoga classes, because it seemed like something she would like that he keep up with, and would tend to the flowers in her garden when he knew she wouldn’t be home for a while.

On her birthday, he sent her a box of succulents with no note, just hoping it would please her.

That was ok, for a while. Not enough. But ok.

***

When their pats do cross, it is a bit dreamlike.

"Just a latte and the usual, Miss Dornan, if you'd be so kind."

Ichabod is not really thinking about anything when he grabs his food and drink. It crosses his mind that he doesn't know what sort of donut Sophie likes, and that he should ask her for the next time they are working long hours. He turns to leave and nearly drops his belongings.

"Is everything ok, sir?" she asks, looking puzzled and concerned.

Ichabod cannot move. All he wants is to hold her. Tell her how much he missed her.

But it cannot be.

“I-I’m sorry. Yes, everything is alright. Completely alright. I am so sorry Miss Mil-” _dumbass_ "Miss. Excuse me."

He rushes before Abbie has the time to say anything. Once in the streets he runs, actually runs away from the store as fast as he can, because if he spends another minute close to her, he won't be able to stop himself.

Five blocks away from the donut shop, he stops and holds himself against a brick wall, heart racing and tears pooling on his eyes.

He thinks about Miss Jenny's words. Perhaps when the tribulations are over. Three more years.

Time couldn't pass fast enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!! And also, if you know me, you know this fic won't be updated fast. I'm sorry, I'm a slow writer. But, it will be written till the end (second chapter is already halfway done) and it will fulfill its promises. English is not my native language and this fic wasn't beta'ed, so, sorry for any mistakes. Comments are always welcome!


	2. so much time on the other side, waiting for you to wake up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So you are afraid, that’s it?”
> 
> “Yes! I am afraid. I can’t go near her because I’m afraid I’ve harmed her beyond any cure. I am afraid I lost her. I am afraid, Hawley, I am afraid all the time!”
> 
> “Good. Afraid is when you can be brave.”

It’s a good Friday, Abbie thinks. Jenny and her went out for drinks at their favorite bar. There’s no work drama, no dad drama, no Jenny drama, not even any memory drama, which is a good break for her, because the lack of memory drama was getting increasingly rare these past few weeks.

She’s sitting alone at the bar, waiting for Jenny to arrive from the ladies’ and she even considers she could sing something. The karaoke night is running as usual. Abbie haven’t sung in ages and she does like the thrill of getting on a stage. It’s so much better than any other thrill she usually encounters.

What song would she sing though? She doubts Jenny will want to join her, but a duet would be nice

_And I never lost one minute of sleepin'_

_Worryin' 'bout the way things might have been_

 

_What?_

 

I mean, yeah, she could sing “Proud Mary”, but where had that come from? Abbie touches her temple, sensing the beginning of a headache. If she could just remember why “Proud Mary” had sprung in her mind just now...

“Abbie Mills!” a charming voice with a slow southern lilt calls her from the door. She raises her head to meat a blond man with a roguish air and open arms.

He hugs Abbie before she has time to process what’s happening.

“Man, I knew I would find you here. I wasn’t counting on coming to Sleepy Hollow anytime soon, but life has its mysterious ways… How have you been? And Jenny? Oh, and where's that British rag?”

Abbie’s mind is racing trying to place him. A million thoughts stumble over one another and that fuzzy headache is there, the one she has when she wakes up from one of her nightmares. There was a mystery? An artifact, perhaps? Was he from the FBI? Or something to do with Jenny… 

The man lets go, but her mind doesn’t stop. She gets the feeling that they somewhat flirted but there was someone very jealous and a woman in a river and for a second Abbie has the very distinct feeling of drowning. _Don’t go there. It will hurt. Let it go._ The man is still talking, but Abbie can’t hear what he’s saying. The walls of the bar start are closing in on her. She’s gonna lose it and she doesn’t even know who he is.

“Nick! Oh my god!” Jenny’s voice pulls her from the loop. Her sister is racing towards them with a concerned look on her face. She quickly changes it to a fake smile, but her eyes still move franctly between Abbie and the stranger.

“Jenny, hi-” he starts, but is interrupted by Jenny grabbing him by the arm.

“We have so much catching up to do. I’m just gonna steal him for a moment, ok, Abbs? I’ll be right back.”

 

When they both leave, Abbie’s mind becomes clearer. She knows him for sure, but probably they met just before the accident. She tries not to make much of what just happened. It is what she does in these situations anyway. _It will hurt._ Since she woke up from the coma, she justs knows that somethings are better left untouched.

 

As Jenny drags him across the bar, Nick unsuccessfully tries to pry her fingers from his arm. Jenny’s grip is so strong he fears he’ll get bruises out of it.

“Wow, wow, wow, what the hell Mills? What are you doing?”

“Abbie doesn’t remember you,” she says, flushed, after finally letting him go “And you can’t talk to her about anything you used to talk about.”

Nick frowns.

“What?”

Jenny sighs.

“Did you heard anything about a Pandora? The Hidden One, Sleepy Hollow becoming another hellmouth last year?”

“Yeah, I mean, of course. Normal folk was aware of some of that. What about it?”

“So, in a very complicated plot that I don’t have time to explain you, Pandora made Abbie not be a Witness anymore. She forgot everything related to that, and everyone she knew through supernatural reasons, so you and Crane, and all-”

“Ichabod” Nick interrupts her “Man, he must be heartbroken.” 

“He is. But more importantly, Abbie gets in a bad shape whenever something shows up that she can’t explain. Like her brain is fighting with itself. So we’re gonna come back there with an excuse for you and why you weren’t important enough to be remembered. And we’ll have no supernatural talk tonight.”

“C’mon, Mills. That’s like, my entire life?”

Jenny isn’t impressed. She locks her jaw and speaks in a tone that offers no place for negotiations.

“Find a way, Nick.”

 

Jenny and the man come back laughing light-heartedly and Abbie thinks, for a second, that maybe she’ll be fine.

“Sorry, Abbie. This is Nick. He is a long time friend of mine. He helps collectors to find some old stuff. He is from my old days, but we are both working within the limits of the law now, as you know. We’ve dated for a short while last year, you must’ve met him then, remember? He gave you some advice on a collector’s case?”

“Ah. I guess so, ok.” Abbie says and she hates it. It’s the mechanical ok from when a convenient, yet not satisfying explanation fills one of the holes in her memory. Nick Hawley makes sense. Like Corbin’s death, or the explosion, or the cacti in her house.

She’ll let it go, go back to her beer and have a peaceful night.

 

Except.

It’s not quite so good, this time. Something is off. Frayed at the edges, like a wound that’s only partially healed. It twists her stomach.

 

“I’m not feeling so well, Jenny. I’m gonna head home, ok?”

“Yeah, sure! I’ll call you later.”

They both watch as Abbie leaves the bar with uncertain steps and dropped shoulders. Not like Abbie would walk at all.

Jenny sits down and sips her beer. 

“That went well.”

Nick rolls his eyes.

“That went shit, Mills. She knows everything is off and she’s pissed.”

Jenny rubs her forehead as if trying to chase a headache away.

“It’s gonna sound horrible, but Abbie is pissed all the time. It’s better than when she’s screaming cause there’s something eating away her memories.”

Nick sits next to her, grabbing a bear for himself. 

“Where is Crane?”

“Hiding. Crying. Who knows? He doesn’t go out much, these days. He met Abbie at a donut store two months ago and it let him in shambles. She was funny for weeks afterwards too, but she doesn’t know what she missed, so it’s less bad.”

“Can I give him a hello?”

“If you want to. _He_ has no brain injury” Jenny says, trying to keep her annoyance down, but still clearly upset that it was her sister, and not Crane, that was attacked and irreparably hurt by the supernatural.

Nick can understand that. He never had siblings, but he knows how unfair it feels when someone you love is hurt by unearthly forces and a bargain can be made, but wasn’t. A bad bargain perhaps, but still. It feels unfair and you hate yourself for feeling that.

***

Crane opens his door to find Nick Hawley smiling sympathetically to him. 

“Master Hawley”

“Hi, Crane.”

Ichabod blinks and stutters for a moment before finding his manners.

“Oh, pardon me, I didn’t know you’d be in town.” he says, because he doesn’t know what else he should say in such a situation.

People didn’t really show up unannounced at Ichabod Crane’s door. He didn’t know any of his neighbors, his colleagues at the Historical Society weren’t intimate friends who would visit him in his flat. Sophie would come to pick him up to go on a case and every now and then she would stay so they could drink something in celebration of a successful encounter with a supernatural force (Ichabod couldn’t go to the karaoke pub. That was an Abbie place, in an Abbie part of town, where he wasn’t welcome. Much like his favourite donut store had recently become.) Sometimes they would discuss cases there, but both would prefer the neutral environment of the archives over any of their own homes. 

Joe was trying to provide him with some form of normal relationship. He’d come once a week, they’d watch a game of wherever and talk about anything that wasn’t Abbie and that would break his heart. Jenny showed up with him sometimes. She’d only talk about Abbie. That would break his heart even more.

The point was, people only came to visit him with a purpose and previous notice. So Nick Hawley casually greeting him after two years of no contact wasn’t something he would expect in a million years.

“Just came to check on you.”

”All right…?”  Ichabod answers uncertain. That makes the visit sounds even more absurd.

“Ok, hear me out, Crane. I know we weren’t the best of friends, but Jenny told me what happened and it seems to me you are in dire need of one.”

His smile is honest and open. Hawley was a rascal and a privateer. But he had gone out of his way to help them, more than once. Perhaps he was a friend. 

“Well… come on in.”

 

He prepares tea for the two of them. Hawley sits quite casually on his apartment, as if they were indeed nothing more than friends who hadn’t seen each other in a while. There’s an easiness to him to Ichabod almost envies.

“You know, I wasn’t involved. That’s why I’m here. Jenny told me you were feeling down and the thing is, you’re surrounded by people who still get to see her. People who have too many opinions about this whole business and I’m… just another guy she also forgot about.”

A laugh forms on the back of Ichabod’s throat. That’s what they had in common, indeed. Abbie. But also not having Abbie, which was the same similarity they shared the other time. 

He sets the tea between them and sits in an opposing chair.

“It was my fault. That she forgot us. That she’s hurt too to even think about us now.”

“No, no. I am not saying that.” Nick tries to say, but Ichabod interrupts him.

“But it’s true” he continues, firmly “I was meant to be her fellow witness. Not the idiot who stays behind and let her sacrifice herself. I mean, I’m the one who should’ve died two centuries ago. I don’t deserve her.”

“That’s bullshit, Crane. Even I know that. Even when she caught my eye, I noticed, in a heartbeat, that you guys were something else”

Ichabod stares at Hawley, certain he is mocking him, but he has an earnest look on his face.

“Whatever do you mean, Master Hawley?”

“That you were, I don’t know… Meant to be. Meant to find each other across the centuries.”

Ichabod sips his tea. He had entertained the idea of course. That more than just stopping the apocalypse, he specifically and Abbie Mills specifically belonged together.

But then what would that make of their separation, which had occurred in such a specific way that only Witnesses could suffer? What cruel fate would be that? That brought them together just to separate them like that?

“No” he decides “That wouldn’t be fair on Miss Mills. She deserved better than me.”

“You make a mistake, then, and that’s it? You decide it’s a good plan to tear yourself apart?”

Ichabod nearly drops his cup.

“That’s not- I don’t-” Ichabod takes a long breath, tempted to throw this privateer out of his house “I do what I must to protect the world and keep Abbie safe.”

“Yeah? Do they even notice? Jenny, her guy, your new Witness, do they noticed the sorry mess you’re becoming?”

“I…” there’s not an answer to that. Maybe he does need a friend “I hide better in front of them. I guess Joe notices, but he’s too close to Abbie and Jenny to say anything about it. Sophie knows, surely, but most of the time we are so worried with one demon or the next. You are more perceptive than I thought.”

“It’s easier to open up to someone who’s looking from the outside, I guess. But does that helps Abbie, Crane?”

Ok, time to throw Mr. Hawley out.

“The headaches” Ichabod says, as if explaining the obvious to a very simple child “The way she screamed when she woke up, you wouldn’t know. I can meet her, perhaps someday, but not now.”

“I saw a bit of that when I met her, Crane. She’s not pleased been left out of everything. Can’t you guys try some baby steps?”

There’s tears pooling on his eyes, he knows. He doesn’t want to cry in front of Hawley, but it is too much. 

“What, I wonder, should I do, Master Hawley? Go and bother her, and hear her scream like that again? I’d rather die.”

Hawley just looks at him. Compassion. That’s how everyone looks at him. He. Doesn’t. Deserve. It. Can’t they just stop?

“No, I don’t think Abbie would want that.”

“Hawley…”

“She loves you, Crane. Or did, before she forgot. Just let her know you’re around. That she’s not going mad. At her own pace.”

“What if I can’t?” he’s crying now, but who cares? “What if she never gets better. What if that thing, that box, that curse, what if it broke whatever it is we had forever, and I’ll have to live without her for- for good?”

“So you are afraid, that’s it?”

“Yes! I am afraid. I can’t go near her because I’m afraid I’ve harmed her beyond any cure. I am afraid I lost her. I am afraid, Hawley, I am afraid all the time!”

“Good. Afraid is when you can be brave.”

“What?”

“Brave enough to fight for her. The way I see it, you’ve waited nearly two and a half centuries to meet her. You can wait a few more years. Just don’t give up on her, Crane. And don’t give up on yourself, because if the two of you really do love each other, you have to be in one piece to meet her again. That’s it. That’s what she would want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kinda loved Hawley, don't judge me


End file.
